Trees - Bead Tree and Paulownia.

This is a one-year old sapling of a Bean Tree, also known as Persian Lilac or Chinaberry tree. It was given to us by a friend last year and I'm delighted to learn that it's also known as Nim in India (Green Thumb will correct me if I'm wrong).

Now the strange thing is I've been taking an interest in Neem oil for a few years but haven't been able to find it until recently. It's an effective natural insecticide and fungicide against the geranium moth, aphids, mealy bug, spider mite, botrytis and mildew. So I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my order from northern Spain and will report on its effectiveness.

And this is the mother tree from whence our sapling came, grown from seed. It has pinky-bluey flowers in the Spring. Beautiful, eh.

Now the central seedling below is a Paulownia, seeds ordered from UK, and took around 4 months to germinate. We have around 6 and they are being nursed like babies. They are very fast growing, have beautiful blue flowers and huge leaves and are prized by wood carvers. In Japan, so I read, one is planted on the birth of a daughter and cut down later to make her wedding chest.



Here she is in all her glory, with thanks to a website for the picture.
Finally, here is my friends' "cork" tree which is really a yucca. There's been a lot of new growth in their absence and they haven't got round to adding corks to the new spikes, but you get the idea. It looked very cute when all the spines were capped but I guess they need to do a bit more imbibing before they can complete this one!